Behaving Ethically Online: Ethics and Values Lesson Plan

Level: Grades 7 to 8

Duration: 1-1 ½ hours

Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts

This lesson is part of USE, UNDERSTAND & ENGAGE: A Digital Media Literacy Framework for Canadian Schools.

Overview

In this lesson, students consider how we come to hold values and how they affect our behaviour, especially online. They begin by comparing their assumptions about how common positive and negative online behaviours are with accurate statistics, and then consider how believing that something is more or less common than it really is can affect whether or not we think it’s acceptable. The teacher then uses a fable to introduce students to the ways that values can be communicated both overtly and implicitly and students discuss the ways in which their values have been communicated to them. They then turn specifically to the online context and consider what values they have learned about online behaviour and how they learned them. Students then consider scenarios where different values may be in conflict and consider ways of resolving them, then develop their own moral dilemma scenarios.

Learning Outcomes

Key concepts/big ideas: Students will understand…

Media have social and political implications:

media (including entertainment media and online communities) convey ideological messages about values, power, and authority, meaning all media communicate values

Interactions through digital media have real impact:

conflicting values (e.g., loyalty vs. fairness) are common in moral dilemmas, and resolution requires prioritizing one value or finding a compromise between the competing principles

Frequent misconceptions to correct: mean and cruel behaviour is common online; witnesses usually ignore mean and cruel behaviour when they see it; many young people send “sexts”; digital interactions are less “real” and carry fewer consequences than offline interactions; there is always a clear right and wrong side in cases of online conflict.

Framework topics: Students will know…

Community engagement:

different ways that our values are shaped

Ethics and empathy:

ways of identifying moral dilemmas and resolving conflicts between values

Key vocabulary: Values, moral dilemmas

Core competencies: Students will be able to…

Understand:

Identify ways that digital media can lead to conflict between values
Use a structure method to analyze and resolve online conflict

Engage:

Identify when two values are in conflict
Explore reasons why one value might be considered more important than another
Explore ways of finding compromises between values in conflict

Student-facing outcomes: We will learn about how our values are shaped by our family, friends, and the media we see. We will think about how all media teach us about values and power, and that things we do online can have a real impact on others. We will practice ways to figure out which values are fighting in a problem and how to solve that conflict, helping us to analyze and resolve ethical challenges online.

Home and School Connection

This lesson and all associated documents (handouts, overheads, backgrounders) are available in an easy-print, pdf kit version.

Lesson Kit

Behaving Ethically Online: Ethics and Values